ASHEVILLE – As the Asheville Tourists sputtered into irrelevance in the late 1970s, the Class A minor league franchise that began playing pro baseball at McCormick Field in 1924 found a savior in a used car salesman born and raised here.

In 1980, the Tourists were crippled by debt and years of inattentive management. Their run at McCormick Field seemed to be drawing to an unceremonious end.

The home of the Tourists for 50 seasons had fallen into disrepair, and the atmosphere reflected the park’s appearance.

“Ron did an amazing job of not only keeping baseball in Asheville, but taking it to another level,” says Chris Smith, the Tourists’ longest tenured employee at 25 years.

Smith, the team’s senior sales executive, worked with McKee for more than a decade.

“In all honesty, when I was a kid, my parents and grandparents didn’t want me coming to see games here,” Smith said.

“There were some fans that were a little rough, and Ron got rid of that element.”

Running the Tourists became a family affair for the McKees after Ron took over as general manager in 1980.

Needing a bookkeeper, he turned to his wife, Carolyn. She volunteered the first season, became full time and worked alongside Ron the entire 26 years he served as general manager.

“Her payment that first year was getting to accompany me to (Major League Baseball’s) winter meetings,” McKee said with a grin.

The McKees’ children also spent a significant portion of their childhood at the ballpark.

“It was a great experience,” Matt McKee said.

Described as a “ballpark rat” by his father, Matt loved hanging around the clubhouse with the players and roaming McCormick Field.

Often, the children brought sleeping bags and bedded down in the clubhouse while Ron and Carolyn finished up after night games.

“We had our kids there, and I wanted people to feel comfortable bringing their kids there as well,” McKee said.

In addition to altering the image and atmosphere of the Tourists, McKee possessed a business savvy that had far-reaching effects on Minor League Baseball.

McKee developed several popular promotions, including “Thirsty Thursday,” the dollar-beer night, now a registered trademark of the Tourists.

“Everybody had beer nights, but in North Carolina at that time you couldn’t advertise beer or price,” McKee said.

The previous owner, Merrill Eckstein, held beer nights, but because of advertising restrictions, they had to be billed as discount beverage nights, and Eckstein did not have a set night to hold them.

McKee also came up with the Shirt off Your Back promotion, a giveaway now featured at sporting events across the country.

He often caught children from the surrounding neighborhood sneaking into McCormick Field through a hole in the fence. He asked to see their tickets and they would flash him a piece of a popcorn box or part of a program.

“It got to be a running joke, but I didn’t care. I would much rather have them in there than out in the parking lot. Some of these kids didn’t have a chance,” he said.

In order to stay in the ballpark and chase foul balls and return them for money, McKee made each kid bring him his or her report card for inspection.

“I think they actually really liked that because I was someone who cared about them. That has nothing to do with baseball. That’s just people in the community,” said McKee, who retired as part owner of the team in 2006.

To many, McKee is a father, a kind man who cares, but even those who never met him owe him deeply for saving an historic piece of local culture from a sad death.

McKee, a big, cheerful man, speaks easily in a warm accent that places him firmly in the Western North Carolina mountains where he was born and raised.

And true to nature, he quickly shares the credit of his success.

“I was fortunate enough to come along when I did, but Lord knows I didn’t turn it around,” said McKee, now enjoying retirement form his home in Avery’s Creek.